Hootstwo wrote:The price descends... There's a toon flogging a VH in trade on Proudmoore for 75k, I'm guessing you could have it for less.

A level 1 on my server was spamming his VH the other day for 100k (down from 110k a few days ago) and I whispered him saying that prices were down to around 75k on most realms now and he replied about a minute later saying "ok". I asked if he had more than one, and about a minute later he replied "yes". I then asked him how he got so many, that he was so lucky, and that I'd been looking for one forever, and I thought he had ignored me until a few minutes later he finally replied "75k ok?"

To be honest... I've got a feeling that there are less VHs available as we speak... they're been on the AH for a few days, but they did not sell quick and i think they're gone now... Did Blizzard do something about it? Or are they still around but lurking in the shadows...?

Just spoke to a level 1 priest selling TUskarr Kite for 130k... Asked him if he got more of them, and he answered with "Y"...

There's still no evidence of Tuskarr Kite duping -- there's only 6 across US Horde AHs atm, 19 on ally.

Ruststorm wrote:Did Blizzard do something about it?

Good question. It seems like they did. The VH problem peaked this past weekend with 200-250 on US AHs (combined horde+ally). Sometime around Wednesday/Thursday the mobile AH went down, and coincidentally on Friday there were fewer than 100 VH on AHs (and also half as many EST and spectral tiger cubs as before; but the number of Tuskarr Kites didn't change). And they haven't come back. Also coincidentally, the VHs that are no longer there tended to be the ones price-fixed at 110k or 85k, which you can see on Underminejournal because they keep a weeks' worth of data, if you scroll to the bottom graph

So I'd bet this was a banning wave, targeted at the shadier accounts (ie highest toon level 1, nonsense name, 10+ high-end pets in their bags). If so, it's made a dent in the VH supply, but only a small one. Many of these VHs have clearly made it to 2nd- and 3rd-hand buyers, and those have not been removed. That's the same trend as the level 6 tiger cubs: duped pets that had already been bought by legit accounts were not removed.

So in summary: VH supply was stable in the 5-20 range for many months, then it spiked up to 200-250, and now we have evidence of a ban wave that has cut the supply to ~100. This is obviously better than if the dupes weren't addressed at all. However the damage has been done and will not be completely reversed: we are still looking at a spike in supply of roughly 5-fold, at least in the short term.

I am really leaning towards what some people are posting, that certain guilds may have held back the V.Horror waiting for what they thought of as a peak selling time. I would combine that with Poofah's point that the 'duping flood gates' have been opened and then closed by bans. The price has been appropriately hit..down to 65k on some realms.

Currently (May 23rd) there are only 17 Horrors available on Alliance side and around 50 on the Horde side. The dupers made their profits and faded into the wormwork.

The residual #'s do not seem out of line with what you might expect this far into the 'age' of the content. The pet drops at a 1/83 rate and those who run it will have improved strategies and gear, so drops are inevitable.

There is even less evidence of a Tuskarr kite dupe which some have suggested .. very small #'s available on the AH.

@tekulve2012: im fairly certain the kites have been duped. The same level 1 characters selling the dragon kites and Tiger cubs are now listing the tuskarr ones in their sales... At least on Magtheridon EU Alliance...

I have found an easy way to tell if an item is a potential duped item. If the person you are buying it from tells you to wait and/or someone other then the person you were going to buy it form shows up to make the trade. In either case when that happens I bail on the trade.

This is mostly with low level toons.

I have bought several from guilded lvl 90s that are gms of their guild or officers that are selling the pets on behalf of their guild. I have no problem buying those.

Ruststorm wrote:@tekulve2012: im fairly certain the kites have been duped. The same level 1 characters selling the dragon kites and Tiger cubs are now listing the tuskarr ones in their sales... At least on Magtheridon EU Alliance...

This is an interesting point. US servers show no real evidence for large-scale duping (~30 kites on AHs atm), but EU has 130+ currently.

Tekulve2012 wrote:I am really leaning towards what some people are posting, that certain guilds may have held back the V.Horror waiting for what they thought of as a peak selling time... The residual #'s do not seem out of line with what you might expect this far into the 'age' of the content.

This can explain some of the VHs, but I doubt it can explain all of them. We're still looking at a population increase of roughly 10 pre-dupe to >60 post-dupe.

Tekulve2012 wrote:The dupers made their profits and faded into the wormwork.

The shady level 1 dupe sellers have definitely faded away somewhat (probably because of account bans), but Bliz doesn't ban legit accounts who buy illicit pets, and they don't delete the illicit pets. I suspect that many of the duped VHs were bought for resale, and they're still out there and contributing to the current supply.

Ravnhawk wrote:I have found an easy way to tell if an item is a potential duped item. If the person you are buying it from tells you to wait and/or someone other then the person you were going to buy it form shows up to make the trade. In either case when that happens I bail on the trade.

This is mostly with low level toons.

I have bought several from guilded lvl 90s that are gms of their guild or officers that are selling the pets on behalf of their guild. I have no problem buying those.

I've experienced this too more than once. =( The person I was going to buy from says something along the lines of "it'll be ready in 5 mins" in broken English, and invites me to a group to wait next to them in front of the main AH in Orgrimmar. A few minutes later another new level 1 comes running up from the front gates, targets the person I was talking to for a few seconds and then logs out. Only after all of this did the person finally open the trade window to try to sell me the item. I've always questioned what just happened and why the person didn't have the item in the first place, and they've never given me an answer, just insisted that I give them the gold now now now.

The first time I bought an item from someone like this I didn't think anything of it, maybe they had to cancel an auction and wait for the mail to come back because sometimes it takes a little while. Naive, I know now. The second time though, I knew more about duping so I got really suspicious... I actually paid attention and saw the second level 1 coming and going, so I just reported them for cheating and didn't buy the item.

I could possibly see how this might - might - be legit for pets, since they can be caged and traded across accounts by level 1 characters. Sadly the first item I bought was one of the onyx jeweled panthers, not a pet, and I just can't see how it could have been legit now. =(

Skye wrote:The first time I bought an item from someone like this I didn't think anything of it, maybe they had to cancel an auction and wait for the mail to come back because sometimes it takes a little while....

I just can't see how it could have been legit now. =(

They compartmentalize by splitting up the selling, pet holding, and gold handling among separate accounts. That way, when the seller gets reported and banned, the gold and pets are still safe.

There's a 99% chance that item was not legit, but it's no fault of yours. Bliz's policy seems to be to deny that duping happens; to ban dupers when possible; and they consider legit accounts who buy dupes to be blameless, except in egregious cases. So my guess is that onyx panther is still useable, just like a legit one, and you should consider that to be tacit approval from Bliz.